5 Interior Design Styles and Why We Chose Ours

People ask us all the time: what would you call your style?

We initially resisted answering that, because putting a label on what we do always felt like it was going to shrink it somehow.

But the truth is, we made a deliberate choice. And we think it’s worth explaining why, because understanding the landscape of design styles is one of the most useful things you can do before you start any project, whether you’re hiring a designer or going it alone.

Here are five styles you’ll hear about in the world of interior design. And then we’ll tell you which one we chose, and why.

1. Traditional Design

Traditional design is rooted in European decorating from the 18th and 19th centuries, specifically English and French. Think rich woods, symmetry, ornate millwork, formal furniture arrangements, and a lot of layering: drapes over sheers, rugs over rugs, pillows on top of pillows. It’s warm and comfortable and communicates permanence.

The upside: it’s timeless in the most literal sense. Traditional rooms have looked good for three hundred years and will keep looking good.

The problem for us: it doesn’t belong here. Traditional design tells a story about European aristocracy and formal living. We’re in Sedona. The land is ancient, but it’s not European. A traditional interior in a home surrounded by red rock feels like a costume.

2. Scandinavian / Minimalist Design

Scandinavian design emerged in the 1950s as a response to the excess of traditional European style. The idea was simple: fewer things, better things. Clean lines, neutral palettes, natural materials, and a deep respect for function. If something doesn’t serve a purpose, it doesn’t earn a place in the room.

There’s a lot we love about this. The material honesty. The restraint. The idea that a well-made piece of furniture is worth more than twenty forgettable ones.

But pure minimalism doesn’t fully work for us. Sedona isn’t sparse. The landscape is layered and complex and alive. When you sit in a room with a view of Cathedral Rock, the land is doing a lot of visual work. The interior needs enough texture and story to hold its own against that view. Not compete with it. Hold its own.

3. Bohemian Design

Boho is the maximalist cousin of minimalism. It says: collect everything, mix everything, let the room evolve organically over time. Layered textiles, found objects, plants everywhere, vintage pieces from a dozen different places. No rules. No matching.

We have a lot of love for the spirit of boho. The collecting, the eclecticism, the idea that your space should feel like your life and not a showroom. Marianne grew up going to antique shops with her grandparents and has been a collector her whole life. That DNA is in our work.

But bohemian design at its worst becomes visual noise. Everything competing with everything. The eye has nowhere to land. Without restraint, it tips from “collected over a lifetime” into “hasn’t been edited since 2014.”

We believe a space needs character. But it also needs intention. The objects have to be chosen, not just accumulated.

4. Traditional Southwest / Rustic Western

This is the style most associated with Sedona and the surrounding region: terracotta tile floors, turquoise accents, Kokopelli figures, hand-painted saltillo tile, heavy wood vigas, leather sofas, cow skulls. You know the look.

We understand why it exists. The Southwest has a genuinely deep design heritage rooted in Indigenous art, Spanish colonial architecture, and ranching culture. That tradition deserves real respect.

But the version that gets mass-produced and dropped into every hotel lobby gift shop? That’s not honoring the culture. It’s flattening it. When we walk into a space drowning in turquoise and coyote howling-at-the-moon motifs, we see a design language that stopped asking real questions a long time ago.

This is explicitly not what we do.

5. Mid-Century Modern with a Desert Influence (Our Style)

We live here.

Mid-century modern emerged in the postwar era, roughly the 1940s through the 1960s. It was a response to the ornate, formal styles that came before it. The idea was that good design should be functional, honest about its materials, and beautiful without being fussy. Clean lines. Organic shapes. Statement furniture that earns its place. A strong connection between the indoors and the world outside.

That last part is what moved us towards it for Sedona specifically.

Mid-century modern has always been about bringing the outside in. Big windows, open floor plans, architecture that refuses to separate the built environment from the natural one. In Sedona, that’s not a design philosophy. That’s just reality. The red rocks are right there. The light shifts all day. The land demands to be part of the conversation.

So we take the bones of mid-century modern and we let Sedona finish the sentence.

The furniture has the clean lines and organic shapes you’d expect. A cantilever chair in saddle leather. A marble coffee table with an Eames-era sensibility. A walnut credenza with graphic art above it. Statement pieces that anchor the room without crowding it.

The materials go deeper into the desert. Concrete from a craftsperson in Cottonwood. Pine shelving milled in Flagstaff. Ceramics made by Arizona makers. Sheepskin throws. A raw antler shed in a black marble bowl. These aren’t decorative gestures. They’re the desert, brought inside.

The palette reflects the land. Warm neutrals as a foundation: sandy whites, warm taupe, deep walnut, charcoal. Then the accents come from what’s outside the window. Rust. Sage. The terracotta of the red rocks at dusk.

And the objects carry a story. Marianne has been a collector her whole life and it shows. We don’t buy matching sets. We find things with history and build rooms around them. We spec art before furniture. We treat every vignette like it has something to say.

The result is spaces that feel like the best version of where they are. Not a recreation of a design era. Not a postcard version of the Southwest. Something that belongs here, on this land, in this light.

That’s always what we’re reaching for.

So Why Does Any of This Matter?

Because the style you choose for your home, your short-term rental, your restaurant, is really a set of values. It says something about what you believe spaces are for, who you’re designing for, and what relationship you want to have with the place you’re in.

We chose mid-century modern with a desert influence because we think it’s the most honest answer to what Sedona looks like when it becomes a room. Not kitsch. Not austere. Not imported from somewhere else and dropped into the desert.

Rooted. Edited. Alive.

If you’re starting a project in Sedona or the surrounding area and want to talk about what your space could be, we’d love to hear from you.